[The] U.S. chief executive granted Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper a coveted media availability in the Oval Office, a privilege not granted to someone as lowly as Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown not so long ago.

That doesn’t sound like the Prime Minister was snubbed.

Let’s look at other world leaders “snubbed” by the White House!

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines snubbed!

Diplomacy bajanxed! Irish PM Brian Cowen was right feckin snubbed!

Iraqi PM Nouri al Maliki snubbed! Shukran for nothing Obama!

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai snubbed from White House shura!

Oy vey! Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu snubbed!

and as I mentioned yesterday…

Obama is such a prat! British Prime Minister Gordon Brown witnesses the piss poor diplomacy at the White House as he was snubbed!

Of course, these world leaders including Stephen Harper weren’t snubbed at the White House.

The Canadian embassy in Washington DC, when contacted for comment explained:

“The White House Chief of Protocol just called the Ambassador (proactively) to say, essentially, ‘this is nonsense’. It’s not the White House practice, under this Administration, for the President to go outside to greet his guests. That’s done by the Protocol Office.”

It all started with a bit of an amusing piece on the evening news. It seemed that a prankster was walking into Irish art galleries and hanging nude painted portraits of the country’s Taoiseach (the head of the government appointed by the PM). The portraits were elaborately painted and could be somewhat passable among the other artwork yet gallery patrons asked staff about the pieces and the jig was up.

The country’s state broadcaster decided to do a piece about the interesting prank.

And that ended what must have been a rather uneventful day in Irish news. That is, until the Taoiseach’s office called the state broadcaster to complain. The next evening’s newscast contained this apology:

“On last night’s program we carried a report on the illicit hanging of caricatures of An Taoiseach in two Dublin galleries. RTE News would like to apologize for any personal offense caused to Mr. Cowen or his family or for any disrespect shown to the office of Taoiseach by our broadcast.”

Irish bloggers and columnists are calling the move censorship of the news and we’re already seeing predictableresults of amplification caused by the government’s move to meddle.